With no living players elected to the Hall of Fame, largely due to backlash from baseball's steroid era, just 2,500 fans braved the rain for Sunday's ceremonies. / Mike Groll AP

by Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Sports

by Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Sports

You can hear it. You can sense it. It's out there ready to assault our senses.

Major League Baseball is on the verge of unleashing its fury, delivering the biggest widespread punishment in the sport's history.

There will be perhaps as many as 15 major league players who will be suspended for a minimum of 50 games, extending through the regular season, in an announcement that's expected to occur within the next 10 days.

After Sunday's action, teams with players publicly tied to the Biogenesis doping scandal had 56 to 58 games remaining. If MLB is to mete out suspensions that could be completed by the end of the season - a desirous result for those players wanting this chapter behind them by October - the hammer must come down quickly.

In the quiet village of Cooperstown in upstate New York, where baseball celebrates its heritage and honors the greatest in the game, there was anxiety.

It was supposed to be the glorious Hall of Fame weekend when Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the greatest power hitter and power pitcher of their generation, would be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Instead, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the only men inducted Sunday were dead: New York Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O'Day and catcher Deacon White. There was no weekend of celebration. Joy was supplanted by angst.

And with no living players to enshrine, Sunday's crowd count suffered greatly: 2,500 attended, the Hall announced, well off the typical crowd estimate of about 20,000.

The 32 Hall of Famers who came to the weekend festivities - barely more than half of the living total of 62 - talked about protecting the purity of the past, not the future.

"It's kind of sad," said Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson, 76. "I'd be very disappointed if any of those guys (associated with performance-enhancing drugs) get in.

"I do think, though, they will get in. When I'm dead."

The pall in Cooperstown reflected a mood permeating the industry.

Wednesday's non-waiver trade deadline is yet another de facto holiday within the game that will be affected, if not consumed, by the Biogenesis scandal.

Alex Rodriguez is the biggest star lined up in the cross hairs of MLB's drug investigation after Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun's plea bargain last week. He accepted a 65-game suspension through the rest of the season.

Rodriguez's suspension is expected to be greater. He'll be suspended for a minimum of 100 games, according to a high-ranking official with knowledge of the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly, and most likely 150, with talk of a lifetime ban. Rodriguez plans to appeal any suspension, but if the Yankees thought he'd avert suspension, they likely wouldn't have traded for Chicago Cubs slugger Alfonso Soriano.

There are three other teams with playoff hopes facing the same intriguing dilemma.

The Texas Rangers, six games behind the Oakland Athletics in the American League West, have relied heavily on All-Star right fielder Nelson Cruz's offensive output. Yet Cruz also is in the heart of the Biogenesis investigation with his name surfacing on several documents. The Rangers need a backup plan, perhaps a trade for someone such as the Chicago White Sox's Alex Rios, in case Cruz is suspended for the rest of the season.

The what ifs are many.

If Cruz is suspended, will he appeal it, enabling the Rangers to carry on with a legitimate shot to make the postseason? Or will he surrender, harming the Rangers' playoff hopes but protecting his free agency for prospective employers?

The Rangers insist they don't know Cruz's plans if suspended, but their intenitions certainly are clear. If Cruz goes down without a fight and accepts his penalty, why would they want a guy back who quit on the organization?

The Rangers' preference is a prolonged appeal process, enabling Cruz to be eligible throughout the rest of the season and probably the postseason, worrying about 2014 after the World Series parade confetti is cleaned up.

But if you're Cruz, don't you want protection?

If he appeals and loses, he's going to miss at least 50 games in 2014, damaging his free agent value.

If he loses his appeal, will the Rangers be interested and make him a free agent contract offer?

Or will they walk away as have other teams with no appetite for a free agent slugger who's going to miss the first 50 games of next season?

The Rangers want answers, but, then again, so does Cruz.

It's no different than the Athletics with Cy Young Award candidate Bartolo Colon, who also is featured in the Biogenesis records, served a 50-game suspension for a positive 2012 testosterone test and might be a second offender facing a 100-game ban.

This is why the A's have no choice but to delve into the Jake Peavy sweepstakes, wondering if they need the White Sox power pitcher as insurance, knowing that Colon could be sidelined until next year's All-Star break.

The Detroit Tigers are in a similar position with All-Star shortstop Jhonny Peralta. They don't have a shortstop close to resembling Peralta's all-around talent in the organization. If he is suspended, he could take the Tigers' World Series hopes down with him.

The Hall of Famers gathered in Cooperstown clearly did not pack violins with their golf clubs.

"The way I look at it, those guys cheated," said Robinson, speaking as if they were proved guilty. "They created an uneven playing field. I don't have any sympathy for them."

Maybe one day, it won't matter, and the players with the greatest credentials will be welcomed into Cooperstown.

Perhaps we have a couple of Hall of Famers who used performance-enhancing drugs and simply were never caught, with testing only implemented in 2003.

Clemens and Bonds have been proved innocent in courts of law but guilty in the court of public opinion.

The truth gets cloudier by the day.

"What surprises me is that the best ballplayers in the world thought they needed to do that," Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson said. "But I've got to say, if it had been me and I thought somebody would have been given a little bit of an edge, I'm not so sure I wouldn't have done the same thing.

"I'm glad I didn't have to make that decision. You guys would have been talking about me instead of them.

"I think we've all done some things that we aren't too proud of."

And, sometime in the coming days, the latest walk of shame will ensue, creating a chaos that we've never seen in the sport.

Maybe that's a good thing.

"Guys have been warned enough," Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blyleven said. "If you want to clean it up, you have to be aggressive. They have to put their foot down."